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Monday, June 11, 2018

FIFA ranking: July 2018 probable ranking (new method)

FIFA has adopted a new calculation method for their ranking. It will be used for the very next ranking, the first ranking after the World Cup, to be published on July 19th.I have made a probable July 2018 ranking, applying the new calculation method for all matches played from June 4th onwards. See the probable results for the predicted results used. These are the rules/assumptions for this calculation:- as start rating for each team I use the unrounded June FIFA-points;- all matches from June 4th onwards count for this ranking;- as there is not an International Match Calendar window in June the friendlies get an I-factor of only 5;- the matches in the World Cup groups and Round of 16 get an I-factor of 50;- the matches from the Quarter finals onwards get an I-factor of 60;- the losing teams in all knock-out matches in the World Cup preserve their points from before the loss.Biggest points exchange occurs in the predicted World Cup final Brazil - Germany (1:0): 34.18 points.The preparatory friendlies deliver at maximum 3.24 points to exchange.Where normally the July ranking after a World Cup is quite shaken-up (compare for instance with the old probable July ranking I published last Saturday) this looks like an oasis of peace and tranquility :)

Devaluation of old results: when past results fell into the next timeframe (with a lower weight) timeframe averages changed and thus the FIFA points changed, even if a team did not play a match in the last month.

I think the question is referred to the new system, and there will be no more timeframe averages with the new system. So the answer seems to be no, teams who don't play do not change their points (as the ELOrating system). However we need further details to know if teams inactive for several years will be maintained in the ranking forever or, after some year of inactivity they will be deleted. And to know what will be the method used to calculate the starting rating for future new associated nations.

When a team is already that low on points it will lose very little or no points at all when losing the next match. But yes, in theory teams could end below zero with this system. In the classic elo system the initial value for Palau for instance was 500 while this team now has 402 points.

Now we start with 6 teams on 0 points so this situation might occur (very) soon. I suppose FIFA applies an extra constraint for that situation, though. They probably don't want to assign negative points to teams, I guess :)

Looks unfair if starting "points before game" will be taken from the last rankings calculated with old methodNew method means that points earning and movements in the rankings will be minor if compared to old system. That's why recalculation "from zero" is necessary. Maybe from the point of time when previous method was introduced in 2006 or even earlier

With the classic elo-rating system they use a scientific guess as starting value for new teams. After some 30 matches the elo-rating for the new team by design converges to a new steady state. So something like that is to be expected for the currently used June rankings as starting values. After some 30 matches the rating will have been converged to a new steady state. Only the figure of 30 matches will be different as FIFA applies not a strict zero-sum approach like elo does.

There will be 16 seeds starting from 2026 anyway.Since the rankings are a lot better now, a seeded team in 2022 would need to be a lot more consistent, not just have a good run towards the end of qualifying.

Jos, the match results for the matches from June 4th until June 10th were known at the time of writing, but of course the new formula is applied on them as well.In the probable results page I presented the predictions for the scheduled matches from June 11th onwards. These are also calculated with the new formula.

So the correct date is June 4th. Which is of course an assumption. We don't know yet what FIFA exactly decides to do.

By default: when there is extra time played the result after extra time is the result of the match. So your example was a win for Zimbabwe.When it is a single knock-out match a decision has to be reached, so when it is still equal after extra time penalties are taken. But for this elo-like calculation the result is in this case a draw.

Is that confirmed by FIFA? The current system (and the previous one IIRC) treated a PSO loss as a draw, but a PSO win as halfway between a win and a draw.

I wish they used one notable feature of the women's ranking, that the margin of victory matters. If Belgium beats Andorra 1-0, that's an underperformance, and their rating should drop a little (and Andorra's should go up).

No, that's not confirmed by FIFA. But in their document it says there's only a loss, a draw or a win. Not something like a pso win.Besides, the classic elo rating works exactly in the way I described with extra time en penalty shootout situations.Because FIFA doesn't bother about such details in their description, the only way to know for sure how they will handle such situations is by proof, i.e. the July 2018 ranking.

OK. I think it's entirely possible they do something stupid like consider a PSO result to be a full win/loss.If they do consider a game that goes to PSO a draw, hopefully the stronger team would be protected from losing points in late stage knockout games, as they should not be treated more harshly for a draw than they are a loss!

Still did't get it clearly:If a team plays more than one game between two ranking releases, will "points before game" for the second (and maybe following) game in a frame be recalculated immediatelly after previous one? Or previous rankings will be used for all games in a frame?

The elo-ratings of the two teams are updated immediately after a match is played. This updated rating is starting value for the next match a team plays, even if that match is played before the next ranking is published.The ranking is published as the descending order of the ratings as valid on the publishing date of that ranking.

Ed, thank you for explanation.This makes prediction and preview algorythms more complicated, right? You need to take into account previous games of the team and their rivals.For example how do you estimate maximum of points that one team (A) can gather during group stage on World Cup?For third game in group you may assume that the opponent (B) won two previous games, but it means that the second game's opponent (C) lost their game to B? Or what will be optimal assumption?Could you please clarify?

Vitalii, prediction of scheduled matches is not that hard as there is always a schedule of matches. So you know the teams in the match to predict and you can find the last match where the teams played in and the adapted team-rating as a result of that match. So the start value for each team in the match to predict can be determined. And that's the only dependency with other matches. The rest of the formula is straightforward to calculate.Calculating the minimum and maximum points becomes indeed a lot more complicated though. Maybe only a brute force approach can give the correct answer to this question. I haven't researched this problem yet.

I'm not entirely sure that's the case actually. It is possible that FIFA will use the last ranking as a base for the calculation, even though it is hinted otherwise on the article they published.

Calculating the maximum and minimum points is indeed a tough question is general. In practice there aren't so many matches and assigning wins for all opponents of team X for the matches before the match with X, and wins for all of X matches would give the maximum number of points in most cases.

A consideration after better reading the Fifa statement: "One of the main advantages of SUM is that it allows for a smooth transition from the current ranking formula to the new one without displacement of teams in the existing ranking table. The current FIFA / Coca-Cola World Ranking will be replaced seamlessly by the new SUM formula without gain or loss of member association rank positions."

They do not speak about points but only positions, so I think maybe there will be some kind of conversion from actual points into new different ratings

These calcuations are all based on K's of 5 to 60, in FIFA's June 10 version of the background document.

In the June 14 they (hopefully erroneously) use 0.5 to 6.

See https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/revision-of-the-fifa-coca-cola-world-ranking.pdf?cloudid=fzltr4s8tz3v3vy0aqo1 that is NOW referenced in https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2018/m=6/news=2026-fifa-world-cuptm-fifa-council-designates-bids-for-final-voting-by-the-fifa-.html

We all gave for sure that Fifa will use actual points, but as I said before it is not sure, reading only the text in the pdf document and leaving out the speculations appeared on websites. Constants should be valid if another scale for ratings will be used mantaining the same positions of the June ranking, and I am now finally convinced that this will be the case. There are two supporting elements for my theory: 1) they use a different scale in the formula (600 instead of 400) that causes smaller movements respect the formula normally used in the ELO website. Using actual points, with this formula and constants, positions will be pretty locked 2) if they will use actual points, a lot of teams will have in a short while negative points. I don't think FIFA would appreciate a ranking that looks like this.They wrote that simulations are done so I think they are fully aware of all that.We have to wait details, for this and other issues that I resume:- not losing points for defeat in knock out rounds in final tournaments. It is not specified "major tournaments", so theoretically this definition can involve all tournaments in neutral ground, included CECAFA Cup, EAFF Championship finals and so on, as sample. The fact there will be a different I constant for final stages from QF in the major tournaments, is a separate aspect not necessarily coincident;-extra time and penalty shoot out. In the actual system, a win is awarded 2 points, less than a normal win. If they want to mantain the actual philosophy, they should use 0.75 for the winner and 0.5 for the loser, but of course they should change something;-What starting rating will be assigned to future new associated federations?;-There will be a minimum required number of matches played to be included in the ranking like the women's ranking?- OFC nations cup will have finally the same importance factor of the others continental championships? And if so, the I=40 factor will be used from semifinals (since ther are not quarter finals)? I think probably they will continue to consider it as World Cup qualification (I=25);

The low k values (0.5 to 6.0) and the large scaling constant (600) can't both be true at the same time. The k values imply that the initial point gaps between elite and average teams would be a few dozen points, perhaps, and the first and the last team would be separated by circa one hundred points. But in that case you'd get almost the same points whoever you beat. If Germany plays San Marino, their Wₑ ≈ 0.6 (for comparison, it's Wₑ ≈ 0.999 at eloratings.net).

I'm not entirely sure what would happen in the long run. Even with such asinine values, the ranking would eventually converge into *something*. Even San Marino would, defeat by defeat, trail further and further behind all the other UEFA teams until there would be a balance where the occasional draw they get is enough to offset the 50 defeats before. But my hunch is that it'd converge into a 20-year average strength rather than anything resembling current strength.

If the initial gaps are what they are now, the ranking will never change. For example, Spain (current # 10) would need to beat Germany (current # 1) 65 times in a row to overtake them with the highest possible match weight (5.0; I'm not using 6.0 because the losing side doesn't lose any points in those games). This would be 148 times in a row for Armenia (current # 100) and 182 times in a row for Tonga (currently last). If we use the qualifier weighting of 2.5 instead, these numbers will be 129 (Spain), 296 (Armenia) and 364 (Tonga).

What's somewhat overlooked in the comments of this blog is that even the k values 5 to 60 are (way) too low for the current gaps. A 45-point swing in a World Cup game may look impressive, but most teams only get to play qualifiers where the highest possible gain is 25 points and a normal one between 10 and 15. For example, you need to gain ca. 200 points to climb 10 places within UEFA (approximately one WCq pot). A current lower-middle-echelon team (think Albania, Finland, Israel, etc.) would need to win pretty much all their Nations League games + EURO qualifiers, ie. all their competitive fixtures for two years, to do that.

On an unrelated note, I just realized that the Oceania Nations Cup will remain the only major tournament with the classical, straightforward format where the number of participants is a power of 2 (8, 16, 32, etc) and half of them are eliminated after each round. This will no longer be the case with the World Cup, the European, Asian and African championships after their expansions, while the Confederations Cup might well be abolished.

As mentioned in above comments, the K values seem a little too low. Germany crashing out in the group stage and Brazil losing in the SF still won't be enough to have Germany drop to #2. That feel wrong.

I have Croatia on 1015 (1014.66), but it difference can probably be explained by whether numbers are rounded before, or after points calculation. I think since the calculations result in decimals, that working with rounded numbers (2 two places) would make more sense then to work with whole numbers for each match. So that's what I've done to achieve 1014.66.

In the current elo-ranking Germany has dropped from 2nd to 6th spot, with Belgium at a current all-time high at 4th.It definitely responds better to match-results than the proposed FIFA elo-like calculation.

do you think ELO ranking will be updated after each match or monthly ?I also think K value is too low...There are few changes in next ranking whereas WC is the biggest event.Japan will only climb from 61 to 54 despite their last 16 place.More than that, there will be few ups and downs in Top 16 in the next years and last 2 years results may matter too much

Maybe FIFA will wait one more month. Afaik they didn't mention a startdate for the new method and at the moment WC2014 results aren't well-represented in the (June) ranking while WC2018 would be in the July ranking if they keep the old method for one more month.

I think they deliberately picked June's rankings to start the new formula for that very reason. The month before the World Cup are when the rankings are the closest together which is generally what you want in an Elo system. We could probably argue the rankings are too spread out as it stands, but they're certainly much closer than if we waited until July.

According to FIFA teams will keep their ranking position but the document says nothing about their points total. Maybe points totals will be adjusted but then FIFA should have included that bit of info in the document (along with the start date).

Oh, and about Spain's zero points loss. I read in the calculation document "losses in the knock-out rounds of final competitions will not result in point deductions for the losing team". If they approach this the elo-way this isn't a loss for Spain but a draw, so points should be deducted. But also this aspect we can only verify when the next ranking is published.

There is something biased in ELO calculation.If Brazil #2 win all remaining matchs on penalties they will lose points each time and will finish with less points than last month !There should be some bonus points when you reach quarter, semis or final of that biggest event which occurs only once in 4 years !

Brazil's elimination in the quarter-finals means that no one can pass Germany for 1st in the July ranking if I've done my math correctly and if the new ranking system uses the unmodified June ranking points as its starting values.

The second "if" has to be a very big "if" now. It'd be absurd for Germany to still be 1st. Perhaps FIFA will choose the starting values in a way that whoever wins the World Cup comes out on top?

I get the same thing (within a few hundredths rounding error). Now we just need to wait an see what FIFA does. If they use the existing points, people will laugh when Germany remains #1 and a World Cup finalist England or Croatia struggle to crack the top 10.

seems very biased for "favorites". Basically doesn't matter how you play - if you were ranked low you'll stay there unregarding your results in, for instance, the World Cup. But if you're Brazil or Germany you'll still be flying high, even if you lose big time. Sure, ranking will change very slowly but for this you'll really need to become a consistent "favorite", which isn't that simple for lesser football nations. Correct me if I'm wrong. PS Love the snooker ratings! :)

Excuse me if I not mistaken, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico had already eliminated in Round of 16 while Brazil, Russia, Sweden and Uruguay eliminated in quarter-finals...but the results from group stage aren't updated...why do this happen?

The new system is horrible. I know it has its fans here but the very fact that a team like Germany can be number 1 right after the World Cup is nothing but ridiculous. I'm sure alot of people will have a good laugh when the new rankings are published.

You forgot to subtract the points earned at the previous world cup, which is explained in the M-48 methodology on fifa website (only last 48 months are taken into account, appropriately discounted for every 12 months). you therefore need to subtract the discounted by 80 % points earned back then, as the sunset horizon moved since previous rankings from june 2018 to july 2018. otherwise it is broadly ok, with exception of Russia who being in top 8 should be a bit higher (36th to 38th i think).

In an elo-system there is no longer any devaluation of past points. The only thing of huge influence is the determination of the starting value for each team, for which I have taken the June ranking points of each team. And because these are starting values to calculate the points-to-exchange in each match played from June 4th onwards, these values can't be 'discounted' July 2018 values. So probably I don't understand you correctly. Would you mind trying to explain your point a bit better, maybe with a numeric example. And could you please provide a link to the M-48 methodology. Haven't heard of that one before :)